F 

104- 



Ti^ 







^o!UJL.J2-cL fe^ 




Class FiO <h._ 
Rnnk . L-j 0^ 



«p*-"» 



\ 




^cCZi^Ud ^^ 



A FOOT-HOLD. 



513 



There aA several churches in Lausitz 
where Weiuli.sh services are held. At Burj; 
the pastor, a Weml, holds two services each 
■ Sunday, cue iu his own language and one in 
German, and he preaches equally well in 
either. There are I}il)lc.s and hymn-books 
in Wendish, and at ("ottbus a tiny mission- 
ary periodical is j)ublished. 

It is an agreeable language when heard 
in conversation, and, in spite of the ])rofu- 
sion of consonants, Mhich would shock the 
ear of an Italian, it lends itself easily and 
successfully to vocal music. The Wends 
are understood by the Poles, the Servians 
the Czecs of Bohemia, and, though with 
more difficulty, by the Russians. As a writ- 
ten language, however, it will soon disap- 
pear, aiul even iu speech the German is slow- 
ly displacing it. 

Physically the Wends are a powerful peo- 
ple, and resemble the American Indians. 
The men are tall, erect, and muscular; tiiey 
are generally beardless, and, through expos- 
ure, their complexions acquire in summer a 
dark co))per tint. The women work in the 
field with the men, and, as a rule, perform 
the hardest tasks. The heaviest burdens 
and the poorest tools are relinquished to 
them. This life tends, of course, to develop 
to a remarkable degree sinews which na- 
ture originally did not make too delicate. 
They are somewhat shorter than the men, 
and their massive limbs are the wonder of 
travelers. Iu Saxon Studies Julian Haw- 
thorne describes the legs of the Dresden 
market-women. Far be it from me to ques- 
tion his statements. Any one who has had 
an opportunity of observing modestly the 
generous proportitms of the Saxon will" free- 
ly concede their claims. But the Wends are 
several degrees higher — or larger — in the 







V- 



TUE KINU S ALi>liB. 



scale of development. Tiie limbs of a Wend- 
ish woman are to the limbs of the Saxon as 
the King's Alder is to a common sajding. 
This mannnoth tree was saved from de- 
struction by the late King of Prussia. His 
Majesty once made a tour through the Spree- 
wald, and seeing this beautiful tree, redeem- 
ed it by a lilteral sum from its owner, who 
Avas about to cut it down. Hence its name, 
"Die Konigs Erie." It is held in great rev- 
erence by the peasantry, and they would re- 
sent the uses which, in the cause of pliysio- 
logical science,! was comjielled to make of it. 



A FOOT-HOLD. 



IIariii.y a steamer that crosises tlie sea 

But, carries one traveler more, 
For a little time, out on the shoreless sea, 

Than slie counted when leaving the shore. 

Blown far away from his mate where she sings, 

By the pitiless sea-bound gale, 
Lost, and plying his patient wings 

Till heart and courage fail ; 

Lost on the shoreless, unknown main, 

Blinded with salt white spray, 
Dazed with the endless, waving plain, 

Scared by the lengthening way ; 

Lost on the sea, and no land in sight ; 

Through the heavy and misty air 
Struggling on through the dark and the light 

To terror and mute despair; 

Till on the horizon a cloudy speck 

Clears to the mast, like a tree. 
Clears to the solid and giound-like deck. 

And he follows it wearily, 

And clings and crouches, a welcome guest, 
An eager and tremulous bird, 

VoT.. LIV^—No. 322.-33 



I With the green and blue on his neck and breast 
By his heart's hard punting stirred. 

Then come pity, and food and drink to the brim, 

And shelter from wave and cold; 
But the quick head droops, and the bright eyes dim, 

And the story all is told! 

Pitiful comfort, yet comfort still 

Not to drop in the hungry sea. 
Keeling down out of the empty lieight 

To that terrible agony. 

Bitter and hard to be driven to roam 

Between the sea and the sky, 
To find a foot-hold and warmtli and homo, 

And then — only to die! 

Yet it was harder, God He knows, 

Who counts the sparrows that fall, 
For tlie birds that were lost wluui the wild winds rose, 

Wlien the sea and the sky were all ; 

Wlien the sky bent down to infold the sea, 

And the sea reached up to the sky. 
And between them only the wind blew free. 

And never a ship went by! 



^^^ 



#• 



514 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 






A 



LITCHFIELD HILL. . . ^ . , -',/,, 
BOUT one hmulred miles from New no exaggeration to say that tliis isolated 



L York city, perched among the hills of 
Northwestern Connecticut, at an elevation 
of more than twelve hundred feet ahove the 
level of the sea, lies one of the most pictur- 
esque of New England's villages, now cliief- 
ly known to the people of the nxitropolis 
as a place of sunnner residence, but whose 



New England town was at that time the 
centre of a cnlture unexcelled, and iu some 
respects nnequaled, in its day. The Rev. 
Dau Huntington, who was called in 1798 
from a tutorship in Yale College to the pas- 
torate of the Congregational church, de- 
scribes it as "a delightful village on a fruit- 



crown of glory is its connection with the ful hill, richly endowed with its schools. 



past. 

Though much of the modern prosperity of 
the Hill is due to its improved means of 
communication with the outer world, its an- 
cient importance may be largely credited to 
its comparative isolation. On this account, 
probably, was it selected iu the war of the 
Revolution as one of the chief d6p6ts for 
military stores, and for the safe -keeping 
of royalist prisoners. 
When New York fell 
into the hands of the 
British, the road from 
Hartford through 
Litchfield became 
the principal high- 
way between New 
England and the 
West, and over it 
was hauled most of 
the provisions and 
munitions of war 
for the Continental 
forces beyond the 
Hudson. The village 
being far inland and 
away from any navi- 
gable river, i t became 
the army head-quar- 
ters in Western Con- 
necticut, and a place 
of considerable ac- 
tivity. Its workshops rang with tiie busy 
sounds of preparation, the lowing of beeves 
and the shouts of teamsters were often heard 
iu its streets, and its taverns bristled with 
military importance. Nearly all of the gen- 
eral ofticers of the Revolution visited it at 
various times, and although it was never 
the scene of great events, it bore its share 
of the burdens of the struggle, and its hos- 
pitable roofs doubtless witnessed numy a 
consultation which led to im])ortant results. 

But great as were the glories of the 1 1 ill 
in the Revolutionary times, they were fair- 
ly ccliiiscd iu the jK'riod succeeding them, 
when the <'elcl)r:itcd law scliool, and tlic no 
less famous female seminary which existed 
contenii)oran<'ously with it, attracted pui)ils 
from every Stale iu the Union. Tiiese ac;- 
eessions to its population coutribulcd large- 
ly to a society already brilliant, and wliich 
included iu its numbers a large proportion 
of highly educatetl men and wom<-n. It is 




TArVINO EKKVK. 
[FKO.M a I)U.V\V[N(! UV GKOI'.OK OATUNO.] 



both ))rofessiomil aiul scientitic, and their 
accomi>lished teachers, with its venerable 
Governors and judges, with its learned law- 
yers, and Senators and Representatives both 
in the national and State departments, and 
with a jxipulation enlightened and respect- 
able." Of the heads of families resident 
there at this time, seventeen were gradu- 
ates of colleges, seven were captains in the 

Continental army, 
and four became gen- 
eral ofiQcers, four be- 
came menvbers of 
Congress, two Chief 
Justices, and two 
Governors of the 
State. An anecdote 
of the same period 
shows that the wom- 
en of the Hill were 
no less acconq)lish('d 
than their lords, and 
that they won ad- 
miration abroad as 
well as at luune. 
Among the ladies at 
the national (;ai)ital 
during the second 
administration of 
Washington, none 
was more noted for 
personal attractions 
than the wife of the Secretary of tlie Treas- 
ury. Said Mr. Listou, the British minis- 
ter, one day, to General Tracy, then United 
States Senator from Connecticut, " Your 
country-wonum, Mrs. Wolcott, would be ad- 
mired even at St. James's." " Sir," replietl 
{general Tracy, "she is admired even on 
Litchlield llili." 

It is no relied ion on the intelligence of 
summer visitors to the Hill to say that there 
are ])n)bably some among them who never 
heard of its chief claim to distinction, and 
who pass by the simple head -stone that 
marks the grave of Reeve and the more 
ambitious monument that commemorates in 
Latin the virtues of Gould, unconscious that 
through their efforts Litchfield became bet- 
ter known throughout the Union than any 
other i)lace of its population in the coun- 
try. Yet in nuuiy a distant State their 
memory is still green, and the writer has 
often been questioued concerning the law 



A 



LITCHFIELD HILL. 



>15 



school, partic-ularly in tlio Soutli, by those 
whose fathers or fijrandfatliers had enjoyed 
its benelits, yet who had never heard of its 
diseontinuanee. 

It was in 1772 tliat Tapping Reeve, a 
young lawyer fresh from his studies, re- 
moved from Princeton, Ni!w Jersey, where 
he had for several years held a tntorshij) in 
the college, and begau the practice of law 
upon the Hill, then a ([uiet country village, 
Ijut already 1)eginniug to feel the leaven of 
The Revolution. With liiui canu^ his lu'wly 
married wife, born Sally Hiur, daughter of 
the Rev. Aaron Burr, president of the Col- 
lege of New Jersey, and granddaughter of 
•Jonathan Edwards. But a few years suf- 
ficed to give him a reputation for intellect 
and varied learning and a commanding po- 
sition among the lawyers of the State. Mr. 
Reeve was a remark- 
able man in many re- 
spects. " He was," 
says Hollister, " a 
man of ardent tem- 
perament, tender 
sensibilities, and of 
a nature deeply re- 
ligious He was 

the tirst eminent 
lawyer in this coun- 
try who dared to 
arraign the common 
law of England for 
its severity and re- 
fined cruelty in cut- 
ting off the natural 
rights of married 
women, and placing 
their property as 
well as their persons 
at the mercy of their 
husbands, who might 
sc^uander it or hoard 

it up at pleasure 

.\11 the mitigating 
(dumges in our juris- 
prudence wliich have been made to redeem 
helpless woman from the barbarities of lier 
legalized tyrant nuiy fairly be traced to th(> 
author of the; first American treatise on Tlie 
Domestic Relation)!.''' He is described by one 
who sat under his teachings as " a most ven- 
erable man in character and ap}iearance — 
his thick gray hair parted autl falling in pro- 
fusion upon his shoulders, his voice only a 
loud whisper, but distinctly heard by his 
•earnestly attentive! i)upils." Tin- accompa- 
nying portrait is from a ])encil drawing by 
George Catlin, the celeV>rated Indian jtaint- 
er, who executed it while attending his 
lectures. 

In 17H4 Mr. Reeve begau the instruction 
of legal students, and mot with such success 
that up to 1798 more than two liundred 
young men from his otlice had been admit- 
ted to the bar. lu this year he was chosen 






JAMKS OOUI.D. — [from A roKTKAIT liY VV.VI.DO.] 



a judge of the 8ui)erior Court, and he asso- 
ciated with himself in the conduct of the 
school Januvs Gould, one of his own gradu- 
ate's, and who had previously held a tutor- 
shii> in Vale College. Gould was a man of 
no less ability than Reeve, and perhaps a 
more profoundly philosophical lawyer. His 
treatise on I'leadiiif/ in Ciril Aciionn is re- 
markable for conciseness and logical rea- 
soning, and is still a standard text-book in 
the best law schools of the country. It 
is but an ei)itome of the work originally 
planned by its author, but the publication 
of Chitty's great work while Gould was 
preparing materials for his own induced <i 
change of plan. He too bijcame a judge, in 
1816. 

Under the conduct of these two able men 
the school flourished until 1820 — tlie same 

year which witness- 
ed the founding of 
the Cambridge Law 
School — when Judge 
Reeve retired, three 
years before his de- 
cease. Judge Gould 
continued to in- 
struct classes until 
188:^, when bodily 
infirmities obliged 
him to withdraw, 
and the Litchfield 
Law School was no 
more. It i.s, pcr- 
ha]>s, , necessary to 
explain that the 
school was never an 
incorporated institu- 
tion, nor were any 
buildings ever erect- 
ed for its use. The 
instructors lectured 
each in his owu law 
ofitice, and the stu- 
dents boarded in the 
houses of the vil- 
lage. The office of Judge Reeve, which sto(»d 
in his own dooi'-yard, was removed several 
years ago to West Street, and transformed 
into a cottage. .Judge Gould's ofHce, which 
also stood near his dwelling, is now a cot- 
tage w ithont the village. 

During the half century of the school's 
existence more than one thousand students 
were graduated, ccmiprising among them 
the flower of the youth of the tinu>. There 
might have been seen Calliouu of South 
("arolina, Woodbury of New Hampshire, Sey- 
mour of Vermont, Ellsworth and Hul)bard 
of Connecticut, Clayton of Delaware, Mason 
of \^irgiiiia, Morton and Mctcalf of Massa- 
chusetts, Cuthbert and Dawsou of (jeorgia. 
Ashley and Hunt of New York, Woodbridge 
of Ohio, and uuiny another whose name has 
beconui a i)art of tiie country's history. Of 
the graduates from 1798 to iH'Xi, whose names 




516 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



alone appear in the printed catalogue,* no 
register having been kept for the first four- 
teen years, sixteen became United States 
Senators, fifty mem- 
bers of Congress, for- 
ty judges of higher 
State courts, eight 
Chief Justices of 
States, two justices 
of the United States 
Supreme Court, ten 
Governors of States, 
five cabinet minis- 
ters, and several for- 
eign ministers, while 
very many were dis- 
tinguished at the 
bar. 

Like the law 
school. Miss Sarah 
Pierce's female sem- 
inary was the first 
institution of its 
kind in the United 
States, and, like it 
also, it was for maliy 
years pre-eminent in 
its sphere. It was 
begun in 1792, and 
during the uearlj-^ 

forty years of its existence more than fif- 
teen hundred young ladies were educated 
in its halls, and fitted for the elevated po- 
sitions which so many of them attained. 
Its fame still lives in the memory of many 
who shared its benefits ; but the visitor cu- 
rious in regard to its site is now pointed 
only to the great elms which once shaded 
its roof. 

To those who have the time and the in- 
clination to look them up, the Hill has many 
interesting local associations, and there are 
few American villages which i)ossess more 
centenary houses. Yet Litchfield is compar- 
atively a new town, even when measured 
in the scale of American anticiuity, for it 
can boast of only a century and a half of 
civilization. Perhaps this may partly ac- 
count for its flavor of the past. Its wooden 
dwellings, which in many of the older towns 
have succiiiubcd to the tooth of time, have 
not yet reached their prowler limit of decay. 
But it is also due in a measure to the con- 
servatism of its people, who have guarded 
these relics of their forefathers witli sacred 
care. 

When so much has been preserved, it is 




OLIVKR W 
[feom a ORAVON SKETCU 



OLOOTT. 

UY KEMISEANDT I'EAI.E.] 



* Thfire are 805 Damea of students in this catalogue, 
fliBtribiitcd ainont; the Statos as follows: Coiineotlciit, 
200; New York, 125; Massacliucclts, 90; Georgia, 67 ; 
South Carolina, 45; Maryland, 36; Pennsylvania, i!0; 
Vermont, 26; Itliodc Island, 22; New llanipsliire, 21 ; 
Virginia, 21 ; North Carolina, 21 ; Delawan;, 15 ; New 
Jersey, 11 ; Kentucky, 9 ; and the remainder in smaller 
nninhers from oIIkm' States. Of the whole iiuniher 
more than 1.50 had previously heeii graduated at Yale 
College, and ninny others at other colleges. 



somewhat singular that none of the old-time 
churches remain. The building made fa- 
mous by the ministrations of Lyman Beech- 

er long ago crum- 
bled into dust, and 
the village liberty- 
pole now marks its 
site. The dwelling 
of Dr. Beecher, the 
birth-place of the 
most distinguished 
of his children, still 
exists, but, alas! torn 
from its ancient site, 
it now constitutes a 
wing of a i)rivate lu- 
natic asylum. The 
church which suc- 
ceeded Dr. Beecher's, 
diverted from sacred 
uses, is now a public 
hall, and the pres- 
ent Congregational 
church, a beautiful 
structure, but unfor- 
tunately of wood, is 
the growth of the 
present decade. The 
Episcopal church, 
St. Michael's, and 
those of the other denominations, are also 
of the present century. 

Among the more interesting of the dwell- 
ings is the W^olcott house, on South Street, 
built in 1753 by Oliver Wolcott, iifterward 
signer of the Declaration of Independence, 
major-general of the forces of Connecticut, 
and in his old age Governor of the State. 
Oliver Wolcott belonged to a race of states- 
men. His father, Roger Wolcott, and his 
son, Oliver Wolcott, Jun., were also Govern- 
<ns of Connecticut. The historian of Litch- 
field calls attention to the singular fact that 
his sister, Ursula Wolcott, married Governor 
Matthew Griswold, .and became the niother 
of Governor Roger Griswold ; so that her fa- 
ther, brother, husband, son, and nephew 
were all Goveiiiors of Connecticut. 

The Wolcott house has witnessed many a 
notable gathering beneath its roof. Thither 
often came Brother Jonathan — as Washing- 
ton IovchI to call Governor Triinibidl — to talk 
over publii! afi'airs with its hospital)le owner, 
and the father of his country was himself 
once its guest. Thither, too, were brought 
the remains of the leaden statue of King 
(Jeorge HI. which the Sons of Liberty luilled 
down from its pedestal in the Bowling (Jieen 
in New York, and which the daughters of 
the Governor, assisted by divers of the vil- 
lage ladies, niouhh'.d into bullets for the use 
oCtli(» (!oiitiiu;ntal aiiiiy. Soim^ of the car- 
tridges made from it were .sent to General 
Pntnain on the Htidson, and some distrib- 
uted to the troops who opjiosed Tryon's in- 
viision ; and so it canu^ to i)ass, in the words 






LITCHFIELD HILL. 



517 



of a facetious writer of the day, that the 
king's troops had melted majesty fired at 
them. 

South of the Wolcott liouse stands the 
former resideuce of Keynokl Mjirvin, king's 
attorney in the reign of George III. It was 
built in 1773, but it now occupies a new site, 
and is altered beyond recognition. On the 
oi)posite side of the street is the home of 
TaiJjiing Keeve, built in the same year, and 
in which the great lawy«'r lived and died. 
This, too, was the home of Aaron Burr at the 
outbreak of the Kevolutiou. Hurr, who was 
graduated at i'riucetou in 177'i, went in the 
autumn of the following year to Dr. Joseph 
Bellamy's, in what is now the town of Beth- 
lehem, about seven and a half miles south 
of Litchlield, with a half-foruicd purpose of 
studying theology. A few mouths' study 
suflQced to satisfy him that he could not ac- 
cede to the Gospel according to Jonathan 
Edwards, and in May, 1774, he removed to 
his brother-in-law's in Litchfield, with the 
intention of studying law. But if we may 
judge from his letters, written principally 
to his friend Matthias Ogden, of Elizabeth- 
town, New Jersey, afterward Colonel Ogden 
of the Revolution, his time here was princi- 
pally spent in desultory reading, hunting, 
and flirting. He makes frequent mention 
in his letters of the ladies, and in the spring 
of 1775 we find Ogden writing to him : "I 
read with pleasure your love intrigues." 
But no traditions 
of an attachment to 
any particular per- 
son linger about this 
scene of his early gal- 
lantries. 

But his active 
mind required stron- 
ger stimulant than 
that afforded by the 
mere pursuit of 
pleasure, andhe soon 
found it in the ex- 
citing questions then 
agitating the coun- 
try. Mr. Keeve was 
an ardent Whig, and 
although in after- 
years a supporter 
of the Hamilton! an 
school of politics, 
and a bitter oppo- 
nent of the party 
with which Burr 
cast his fortunes, at 
this time he and his 
brother-in-law were 
in full accord. Burr 
watched the premo- 
nitions of the com- 
ing struggle with an absorbing interest, aiul 
when the tidings came from Bunker Hill, 
he hastened to join Washington's forces at 




Cambridge, whence he soon after went as a 
volunteer with Arnold's expedition to Can- 
ada. A few years ago souk; interesting let- 
ters to his sister, descriptive of the march 
through the wilderness, were disinterred 
from the chaos of the garret — letters un- 
known to Burr's biograi)liers, and which 
shed a new light on his nu)vemen(s at the 
time. In the summer of 1781 Theodosia 
Trevost, widow of Colonel Prevost of the 
British army, and then Burr's affianced wife, 
spent several months here as the guest of 
Mrs. Reeve. Among many other distinguish- 
ed visitors at this hospitable house was Gen- 
eral Lafayette, who spent a night there dur- 
ing the war while on his way to the Hudson 
with a train of stores for the French army. 
A characteristic ane<'dote of him has been 
handed down. Feeling thirsty in the night, 
and fearful, if he called a servant, of dis- 
turbing Mrs. Keeve, who had long been an 
invalid, the gallant Frenchman went down 
stairs in his stockings, and drew water from 
the well with his own hands. 

TheTallmadge house, in North Street, was 
for more than fifty years the residence of 
Colonel Benjamin Tallmadge, conspicuous 
in the Revolution as nuijor of Sheldon's 
Light Dragoons — a regiment greatly favor- 
ed by Washington. The house was built 
in 1775 by Thomas Sheldon, brother of Col- 
onel Sheldon, and was purchased in 1782 
by Colonel Tallmadge, about a year before 

he retired from the 
service. Colonel 

Tallmadge i)artici- 
pated in several of 
the principal battles 
of the Revolution, 
and received the 
thanks of Wa.shing- 
ton and of Congress 
in 1780 for a success- 
ful expedition across 
Long Island Sound, 
in which he captured 
Fort George, on the 
south side of Long 
Island, and destroy- 
ed many buildings, 
much shipping, and 
a large quantity of 
stores. 

When Mnjor .Tohu 

Andr^ was ca]>tured 

by Paulding, Van 

Wart, and Williams, 

he was brought to 

the head-quarters of 

the Light Dragoons, 

then stationed at 

North Castle, and 

but for the earnest 

remojistrances of Major Tallmadge, wouhl 

have been sent back to Arnold. He was with 

the prisoner almost continuously, and was 



OOI.ONn, lll'N.IAMIN TAI.I.MAIKJK. 
[from a rENOII. 8KKT0II IIY OOI.ONKI, JOHN TBUMnUl-L.] 



il8 



HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



led to suspect bis military character from his 
walk as lie paced the floor of his room. When 
Audr^ saw that his disguise had been jjeue- 
trated, be wrote the letter to Washington ac- 
knowledging bis rank, and handed it, open, 
to Major Tallmadge, who read it with emo- 
tions which he could not conceal. On the 
day of the execution he M'alked with the 
prisoner to the scuft'old. In after-years, says 
Kilbourne, he wrote : " I became so deeply 
attached to Major Andr^ that I can remem- 
ber no instance where my affections were 
80 fully absorbed in any man. When I saw 
him swinging under the gibbet, it seemed 
for a time as if I could not support it. All 
the spectators seemed to be overwhelmed 
by the affecting spectacle, and the eyes of 
many were suffused with tears." Colonel 
Tallmadge was elected in 1801 to Congress, 
where he served for sixteen successive years. 
His residence is still in the possession of his 
descendants. 

Hard by the Tallmadge place is the Gould 
mansion, a remaikably well-preserved speci- 
men of the square gambrel-roofed house, cov- 
ered with shingles. It was erected in 1760 
by the Hon. Elisha Sheldon, father of Colonel 
Sheldon of the famous dragoon regiment. It 
passed in 1802 into the hands of Judge Gould, 
who occupied it until his decease. Like sev- 
eral other houses in the village, it too claims 
to have entertained the father of his country. 

The old Seymour house, the birth-place of 
so many distinguished men of the name, was 
demolished in 1855, when considerably more 
than a century old, to make room for a more 
pretentious successor. Major Moses Sey- 
mour, who occupied it during the Revolu- 
tion, served throughout the war as captain 
in the Fifth Regiment of Connecticut cav- 
alry. During the greater part of the time 
he was stationed in Litchfield as connnissary 
of supplies for the army. In 1776 David 
Matthews, the royalist Mayor of New York, 
was arrested for tieasonable designs, and 
sent to Litchfield, where Captain Sejraour 
kept him under surveillance in his own house 
for several months. He was allowed the 
privileges of the village, but under certain 
restrictions. It appears from his own let- 
ters that he was suspected of being concern- 
ed in a plot "to assassinate General Wash- 
ington, and to blow up the magazine in New 
York." He seems to have entertained an 
idea that his life was in jeopardy, and he 
expresses a fear that ho may be " fired at 
from behind a barn or stone fence." In an- 
other letter he says : " They insist I can 
blow up this town. O, that I could ! I 
would soon leave them to themselves." Ti"a- 
dition says that, although he did not accom- 
plish his incendiary desires, he did "leave 
them to themselves," for while taking his 
customary walk for exercise one day, he for- 
got to return. A i)leasure carriage, the first 
ever brought into the town, was presented 



V 



U 



by him to Mrs. Seymour, and was in use as 
late as 1812. The Mayor's traveling trunk, 
left behind in his flight, is still in posses- 
sion of the Seymour family, and was exhib- 
ited in the collection of Revolutionary rel- 
ics shown in the village on the centennial 
Fourth of July. 

Among other prisoners sent to the Hill for 
safe-keeping during the war was William 
Franklin, son of Dr. Benjamin Franklin, and 
royalist Governor of New Jersey from 1763 
to 1776. In the latter year Congress recom- 
mended the convention of New Jersey to im- 
prison him somewhere out of the State, and 
he was accordingly sent to Connecticut, and 
confined for a time at Wallingford and Mid- 
dletown. In 1777 a resolution was passed 
that Governor Trumbull be informed that it 
had undoubted information that Governor 
Franklin was employing himself in distrib- 
uting " the protections of Lord Howe and 
General Howe, styled the king's commis- 
sioners of granting pardons," and recom- 
mending that he be put into close confine- 
ment and prohibited the use of pen, ink, 
.and paper. He was removed under gnanl 
to Litchfield, and confined in the jail there 
until 1778, the year that his father was sent 
as minister to France, when he was ex- 
changed for Mr. M'Kinley, President of Del- 
aware. He afterward lived in New York 
until 1782, when he went to England, and 
spent there the remainder of his life, a pen- 
sioner of the British government. 

The Hill boasts other centenarj' buildings, 
and a few of even greater antiquity. It 
claims, too, to have been the birth-place of 
more noted men and Avomen than any other 
place of its population in the country. Both 
the east and the west burial-grounds are 
rich in the tombs of those who have been 
prominent in both civil and political life, 
but they are too numerous to permit even 
the bare mention of their names. We may 
be pardoned, however, for giving in full the 
inscription from the head-stone of one of the 
ancient mothers of Litchfield, who still lives 
in many distinguished descendants: 

" Here lies the body of Mrs. Mary, wife of Dea. John 
BuEL, Esq. She died November 4, 1768, aged go— hav- 
ing had 13 Children, loi Grand-Children, 247 Great- 
Grand-Children, and 49 Great-Great-Grand-Children ; 
total 410. Three hundred and thirty-six survived her." 

SELF-RECOMPENSED. 

Love me not best, O lender heart and true! 

I nin not fjood or frreat enougli to be 

God's ultimate and perfeet gift to thee; 

Yet thine I am, tlins aealiid through and through, 

And I will love thee in a way half new 

To this poor world, whe.'e love is seldom free; 

Not with a love which thou must share with me, 

But as the ministering angels do. 

Love me not best, for I am not thy mate, 

Yet I am all as rich with lesser gain ; 

Thou canst not give me, dear, a gift so small 

But that my glory in it shall he great. 

Oh, never be it said that love was vain! 

What if it hatli not, when itself is all! 



